Conventionally, optical service channels or optical supervisory channels (collectively referred to as OSCs herein) provide a wavelength on a link between two nodes for data communications there between. That is, OSCs are an additional wavelength in a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) system usually outside the erbium doped fiber (EDFA) amplification band (e.g., at 1510 nm, 1620 nm, 1310 nm or another proprietary wavelength). This data communications is generally for operations, administration, maintenance, and provisioning (OAM&P) functionality such as information about WDM signals on the link as well as remote conditions at the two nodes. Additionally, the OSCs can provide remote software upgrades, network management connectivity, user data channel connectivity, etc. ITU standards suggest that the OSC should utilize an Optical Carrier (OC) OC-3 signal structure, though some have opted to use a 100 megabit Ethernet or another signal format. Typically, OSCs have a set maximum link budget. For example, a standard small form factor pluggable (SFP)-based OSC with as an OC-3 at 1510 nm has a link budget of about 42 dB. While 42 dB covers a large majority of fiber links, it does not cover festoon applications, channel crossings, or other high loss link applications. These high loss link applications can include Raman amplification, however the presence of Raman amplifiers does not improve the link budget of a typical 1510 nm OC-3 OSC because of injected amplifier stimulated emissions (ASE). That is, the high loss link applications do not realize any improvements with the OSC even with the Raman amplifiers on, due to a large optical receiver bandwidth at the Receiver and the inability to reject the Raman ASE. Even if the OSCs were adapted to support Raman amplification, the OSCs would not support communication the high loss link applications if the Raman amplifiers were turned off. Additionally, conventional OSCs are typically a single point of failure thus an OSC failure cannot be distinguished from a link failure. This happens in high loss link applications because the signal power from the far end is indistinguishable from the locally generated Raman ASE. All of the foregoing presents difficult challenges in high loss link applications.